gain. Some of the lines, here and there, had escaped stains and
dirt sufficiently to be still easily legible; and it was over these that
his eyes now wandered. The first words that caught his attention ran
thus:--"I am now, therefore, in this bitter affliction, more than ever
desirous that all past differences between us should be forgotten,
and"--here the beginning of another line was hidden by a stain, beyond
which, on the cleaner part of the letter, the writing proceeded:--"In
this spirit, then, I counsel you, if you can get continued employment
anywhere abroad, to accept it, instead of coming back"--(a rent in the
paper made the next words too fragmentary to be easily legible). * * *
"any good news be sure of hearing from me again. In the mean time, I say
it once more, keep away, if you can. Your presence could do no good; and
it is better for you, at your age, to be spared the sight of such sorrow
as that we are now suffering." (After this, dirt and the fading of
the ink made several sentences near the end of the page almost totally
illegible--the last three or four lines at the bottom of the letter
alone remaining clear enough to be read with any ease.) * * * "the poor,
lost, unhappy creature! But I shall find her, I know I shall find her;
and then, let Joanna say or do what she may, I will forgive my own Mary,
for I know she will deserve her pardon. As for _him,_ I feel confident
that he may be traced yet; and that I can shame him into making the
atonement of marrying her. If he should refuse, then the black-hearted
villain shall--"

At this point, Mat abruptly stopped in his reading; and, hastily folding
up the letter, put it back in the bag again, along the feather fan and
the Indian pouch. "I can't go on that part of the story now, but the
time _may_ come--" He pursued the thought which thus expressed itself
in him no further, but sat still for a few minutes, with his head on
his hand and his heavy eyebrows contracted by an angry frown, staring
sullenly at the flame of the candle. Joanna Grice's letter still
remained to be finished. He took it up, and looked back to the paragraph
that he had last read.

"As for the child mentioned in the advertisement"--those were the words
to which he was now referring. _"The child?"_--There was no mention of
its sex. "I should like to know if it was a boy or a girl," thought Mat.

Though he was now close to the end of the letter, he roused himself
with difficulty to attend